CPA And MBA

Individuals desirous of qualifying as Certified Public Accountant (CPA) have to clear the Uniform Certified Public Accountant Examination that has been designed by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. The National Association of State Boards of Accountancy administers this professional course. Master of Business Administration (MBA) programs are offered by business schools in the United States of America and these may be accredited / recognized by any or all of the three accrediting authorities in the country.

These three accrediting authorities are International Assembly of Collegiate Business Education, Association of Advance Collegiate Schools of Business, and Association of Collegiate Business Schools and Programs. But this even the University or college that has such business schools have to be recognized by accrediting bodies such as Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Western Association of Colleges and Schools, Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools, North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, New England Association of Schools and Colleges, Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, and Council for Higher Education Accredition. Individual desirous of enrolling for this program has to clear GMAT.

CPA program imparts comprehensive knowledge of accounts and auditing, taxation, and standards and policies related to these matters. In addition, the CPA also acquires skills to analyze the financial data, as well as plan for the future. There are statutory requirements such as filing annual returns with revenue department, and company law departments. CPA becomes well versed with these as well.

Effectively, a qualified CPA can be an auditor, or a chief accountant of a business enterprise, or a consultant. This program differs from chartered financial analyst (CFA) as CFA focuses on investments, and analysis related to these investments.

Master of Business Administration is a qualification that lays greater emphasis on non-financial aspect of the business, such as human resource management, management of operations, and marketing, even though eventually all these result in better financial stature of the business. In addition, accounts and finance are also covered in MBA program, though not as extensively as in CPA program.

Because of variation in emphasis, an MBA person is usually confined to business environment. A CPA on the other hand may also be recruited by a school, government, public enterprise, or at national levels. But a CPA may have little to offer when the marketing strategies are being devised or staff requirement is being assessed being essentially finance and accounts related professional. Because a person with MBA has slightly more to offer than a regular CPA, and because all skills of a CPA may not be used in a business, individuals with an MBA qualification have a slight edge over people with CPA qualification. This however gets negated when a person has both the qualifications.



CPA and MBA are both accounts and finance related professions. Many of the functions that these professionals carry out are common, or they overlap. Yet, the two professions are also quite different, even though the subjects underlying their professions are the same. Professional bodies that govern each of these two bodies offer credits for common subjects. This is the reason there are many people who have both CPA and MBA qualifications.

To an extent, a CPA would be able to carry out the functions of an MBA professional. Vice versa, an MBA professional would also be able to carry out the functions of a CPA, but only to a limited extent. For a candidate looking at accounts related professional qualification in the US, it is difficult to select between the two professions as these professions are complimentary.

To compare CPA and MBA, it is necessary to consider the subjects on which each of these professions focuses on. CPA is primarily associated with accounts and finance, whereas MBA is more of a management and costing related profession.

Because of the intensive coaching and examination, CPA is often considered being a better qualification than MBA. For employed personnel, joining CPA course would certainly be preferable, because employers often undertake to pay for study classes, as well as for one time examination. This is not so in the case of MBA.

The person studying for MBA qualification has to pay for education from his or her own pocket. On the other hand, there is the question of 150 hours credit. A person who does MBA gets that many hours credit easily. The 150 hours credit is new stipulation that is applicable in each state of the US. If pay is to be considered as the criterion for selecting between CPA and MBA, CPA draws almost 10000 to 20000 more than a person who is MBA.

CPA and MBA are the important studies which one can prefer to adopt as a career. The main difference between cpa and mba is that the CPA is a certified public accountant while a MBA person deals with the various aspects of business management. The CPA tends to evaluate a business while MBA is completely about the wise use of resources for better productivity and profits.

It is very hard to compare cpa and mba especially to compare the value of cpa and mba because you cannot compare the value of two different streams. One must keep in mind to get enroll in either of both cpa and mba requires similar educational background i.e. a bachelor's degree which for CPA is mandatory to have a 5 year education while an MBA, or any sort of bachelor's degree will be fine. Both CPA and MBA requires experience and to get enrolled you will have to pass the qualification exam.

The cpa and mba salary basically depend on the organization and the post at which you work at. The salary of a cpa and mba generally grow with increasing experience, and actually many people with the cpa and mba career have an exponential growth in their salaries. Also after the completion of cpa and mba program with certain years of experience one can opt for even higher level of study which is extensively based on experience like the CPE for the CPA people and refresher MBA courses to learn new business practices.

The starting and ending cpa and mba, salaries are generally the same, but it should also be noted that the number of disciples in MBA are higher than in CPA. There are more students who enroll in MBA as compared to students enrolling for a CPA. After a graduation and ample experience one can choose between cfa and cpa and mba according to own personal academic and career interests.